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Robert Schumann
1810 - 1856

Robert Schumann was a German composer, music critic and conductor. Today he is counted among the most important composers of the Romantic period.

 

In the first phase of his career he mainly composed piano music. In 1840, the year he married the pianist Clara Wieck, he wrote almost 150 songs. In the following years his work developed into a great variety: from then on he also composed orchestral music (including four symphonies), concert works, chamber music, choral music and an opera. Robert Schumann had a double talent for literature and music. Poems, artistic prose, drafts for dramas and musical compositions stood side by side on an equal footing at a young age. It was only after 1830 that music became the focus of his life concept, and he saw himself as a composer.

 

An injury to a finger put an end to his hopes for a virtuoso career and restricted him to composing.

 

In his last productive years he turned to dramatic or semi-dramatic works. His mental decline (likely linked to both syphilis and a family history of mental illness) accelerated; In 1854 he was taken to a sanatorium, where he died two years later.

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